Monday, March 22, 2010

For the last year and a half there has been a fetish for bacon all over the world wide web. As shown below, people have created everything from Bacon wrapped meat loafs, swim wear, to sodas. OK, the soda is fake but just goes to show you the bacon craziness that's going on out there. And with so much bacon love being shown you knew there had to be some kind of bacon lovin festival right around the corner, right? Of course there is and this year The Bacon Takedown came to Austin all the way from Brooklyn, NY.

Just Google Bacon and you'll see why the world either loves or hates America.

To start off SXSW I attended the Austin Bacon Takedown at Emo's put on by the bacon man himself Matt Timms. OK, OK, I know I didn’t do a great job of covering SXSW this year but at least you get bacon. The Nuclear Tacos event kicked my ass out of SXSW.

This event, or festival of chefs, or cookers and their Bacon dreams hit the bacon nail on the head. And yes, I am sure somebody has made a bacon nail somewhere on the web. It should have been called "WTF can you make with bacon FESTIVAL!?" Even Addie Broyles with the Statesman was impressed by all the bacoking recipes.

I got there early to check out the competitors. You know, like when you go to a sports game early to check out the players warming up, sort of the same thing. Sort of.

And of course, just like a fan, I looked for what interested me the most. Mexican based dishes. Out of the 13, no 20, no 22, to be honest I don't remember how many total dishes were there, I only remember there only being two dishes that tickled my fancy. Jose Maldonado's quesadillas and Tacotown.org tacos.

I do have that say that they were both good. Free bacon food is always goooood. But like in Highlander, there can be only one.

Jose had a good bacon, cheese, and Real Ale wilted spinach quesadilla. He tried to sway the voters with his Star Wars humor by listing the ingredients as Tauntaun Bacon, Wampa's milk cheese with Real Ale wilted Endor Spinach. I would of rather of had Ewok Bacon, there's just more taste to it. Yes, funny and funny can taste good.

Taco Town had a really good “Maple blueberry glazed bacon inside a fresh flour tortilla (made w/ bacon fat), topped with blueberry-habanero hot sauce” appropriately called Crack Tacos. No humor from Taco Town. They were there to kick somebody's ass. Just looking at Evan's mustache in the video below told you that. That thing could have poked an eye out. And if it had poked an eye out, I wouldn't have been surprised if they made a taco out of it. Mmmm, Tacos de Ojo. Their use of a hot plate to make the tortillas on the spot was a nice touch. Sure, waiting for the torts to cook created a back up in the line but, like I said, they were there to kick somebody's ass and no one was going to tell them shit. These are CRACK TACOS people, remember!? These food bitches would have to wait for their bump.

In the end, it came down to use of ingredients and Taco Town knocked it out of the park with the use of the bacon fat for the tortillas and the blueberry-habanero hot sauce. I really liked the way the tortillas had that powdery crust, always a sign of well made tortillas.

Yes, there were somewhere up to 20 dishes that had bacon creativity but The Crack Taco was well conceived. Those reasons are probably why taco town won the Bacon Take Down.

Round of applause to all entries and sorry I didn't mention ya'll in this write up. But I was a Mexican on a mission and I knew what I was looking for. Well done Taco Town. I’ll see you next year.